Adorable

Jinbei Boy

My Little Swimmer

A Very Happy Boy

Precious

About Me

I'm just your basic, all-American girl from Denver, Colorado, except for now, I live half way around the world in Japan.: ) I met my husband in university in Denver. College sweethearts. We have been happily married since 1997. And have been together for way longer, about 16 years total. He's originally from Osaka, Japan. We lived for a couple of years in Honolulu Hawaii, where our beautiful first born son, Branden was born. We were sent there by the company my husband works for. He works for an airline by the way. After living in Honolulu, my husband's employer, wanted us to move to Japan. We live in Chiba, Japan. Where we just built our dream home, an import "all American" house! Which means a big GE oven, big GE dishwasher and yes, central heating and central air conditioning, yay! We also have a beautiful second son, named Noah. Since my husband works for an airline like I said, we travel a lot and I really do appreciate the flight benefits. Other then that, I just love spending time with my family and friends and enjoy back yard BBQ's.

Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Christmas 2016...

A belated Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. : ) We sure did! It was just a quiet little Christmas in our neck of the woods in rural Japan. Look at all those ornaments on our Christmas tree! It was truly so dazzling to enjoy looking at this, all December in our living room! Especially for the kiddos! : )

A purple snowflake with glitter "snow" on it. A pine cone ornament. Nutcracker ornament...just so many special ones for our family! December in our living room was truly dazzling. Definitely gets you in the holiday spirit! : ) And the genkan tree dazzled everyone who visited our home this month...even if it was just a postman dropping off a thoughtful care package from America or an Amazon order arriving from the USA. Yep, we truly love Christmas around our house. Especially when you have kiddos in the house...definitely have to make it special. : )

Once a week from December 1st, I found myself wrapping something or other... in the kitchen. And even adding a Google Play card to their stockings. And other various stocking stuffers too.: ) This one says to Branden from Santa. They know there is no Santa but..it's still fun to write it this way. : )

To Noah from Santa. : )

And baking. I baked something every single day the last 5 days before Christmas. I had a yellow cake in the oven one day. And I just finished making my Nutella frosting from scratch. Super easy, just butter, powdered sugar and Nutella. Simple and delicious.

A freshly baked yellow cake with Nutella frosting. The kids loved this frosting so much that they kept eating this cake. And Noboru...who dislikes things too sweet. He straight up loved this cake and frosting so much, he had 2 slices in a row, this wasn't too sweet at all, it's perfect. Saying how much he loved this frosting and cake. I thought....holy cow...this frosting recipe is a real keeper! : )

I was so close to forgetting to take a pic of the Rice Krispie treats that I made. Hence the slicing of one row. : ) I made an apple crumble. 1 batch of Christmas cookies. 1 batch of chocolate chip walnut cookies again. The final 5 days leading up to Christmas...I was a baking machine. Hahaha. : )

On Black Friday, I placed a fairly big DVD order on Amazon.com. These 3 were for the kids. And yes they got wrapped and placed under the tree. Artificial Intelligence doesn't come on TV very often, but when it does, my kids stop whatever it is they're doing and watch it. They love it. And Totoro, a classic. But they didn't have it. And Mocking Jay 2, they didn't have..but they have the rest. So, they did love receiving these as one of their gifts.

I also purchased other movies too. Me Before You. Loved watching this...this year/summer so much. Definitely something to have in my collection. The Lover (this will more than likely not be available on DVD in the future, so I figured better to get a new copy while I still could.) And same for The Professional. I do have a DVD coming in January. The Girl on the Train. So, I am looking forward to that. : )

Bridget Jones's Diary, the original one is such a favorite of mine, but I never owned it. And just a few other movies that I am very happy to have. Because The Twilight Zone movie and the Tales From the Darkside movie is getting harder and harder to find too, same for Fear. Which is weird because I thought Fear would be easily available but...not so. So...anyway...just a handful of movies to add to the collection and those 3 that the boys received. So...was very glad to get everything on such a great discount on Black Friday. Branden asked for some new car parts for this RC car. And he received those. He also received money and a bunch of other things too. He did quite well for Christmas. And Noah asked for a new pair of Sony Bass Boost earphones and so he received those and a new phone case. And he too received money and a bunch of other things too. They really enjoyed Christmas this year. : )

I received something from Shu Uemura this year from Noboru.

Noboru and I drove to Chiba City a few weeks ago while the kids were at school. We left right away... as soon as the kids were at school in the morning... considering it is a lengthy drive. I received a Custom palette!

Shu Uemura quality. Wow! : )

The amazing part about a custom palette is, I can pick any color of shadow and blush that I want. I could have added 2 blushes in here, if I wanted. I could have added all eye shadows too. And if you have ever seen the color range. Holy cow! They have tons and tons of colors to choose from. However, I wanted a natural palette. Nice neutral eye shadow shades. I brought my own Mac eye shadows with me and my beloved Urban Decay palette and showed the lady...the shades I use the most. The shades where... I hit pan on already. I showed her my #1 color Mac cork. It's a soft brown color and she was able to find an exact match from a Shu shadow and so I picked that shade twice. It's in my palette top upper left and the bottom far right, they are the same exact color as another and the dead on match of Mac Cork. She was able to match all my beloved shades for me and when I felt like my shadows were best for me. I confirmed. I also brought out my 2 favorite blushes...a neutral by Too Faced and a Mac one in Warm Soul. And she said this one matched best to the Too Faced one, I had. And I too looked at every shade. I asked Noboru to chime in and we 3 all agreed this was the best match...to my favorites. That I know I use often and colors I love. Except now...they are in 1 custom palette. So, if I travel...I can just take this palette, 1 brow mascara and some foundation and be pretty much set. Super easy having my eye shadows and blush combined. And in this pic...it best captures their truest colors. Plus in this pic...you can see how the inside of the custom palette it says Shu Uemura on the left hand side. And the brush...is super high quality and it too says Shu Uemura on it. The mirror inside is huge. And it's just something...I really love a lot. I will be getting tons of usage from this. But yes...this pic shows the truest picture of what their colors look like in real life.

This has the flash on and this isn't really what the colors look like.. in real life. But you can see...the 2 on top right are more shimmery. Again though...it's just going to be a super useful and helpful palette. If I go on vacation, I don't have to lug a blush and an eye shadow palette, both are inside here already. So...but the truest what these look like in real life...is in the pic up above.

The ladies gave me this huge Shu Uemura mirror. For free as a gift. And I really like this. : )

Love how the name is stitched on there.

They also gave me gobs of free samples of stuff to try on. : ) All in all, the kids enjoyed Christmas, We all enjoyed Christmas. Noboru enjoyed what he got. We just really enjoyed the heck out of our Christmas morning. : )

After our unwrapping of presents in the living room. Everyone was spending time with the things that they received. And I went into the kitchen. Had a Christmas radio station playing tunes and I made some bacon and cheesy scrambled eggs and some rice or toast. And some mikan. The kids had hot cocoas with whipped cream and we had hot coffees with ours. A wonderful simple Christmas breakfast. Noah and I always eat our eggs with hot sauce. Noboru always eats his eggs with ketchup and Branden never uses anything on his eggs. hahaha. : ) After breakfast we watched Christmas movies. They played for like 2-3 solid days straight. 2-3 channels played A Christmas Story again and again. And another channel played a Christmas Carol again and again, we watched a Christmas Carol 3 times off and on (the story of Scrooge). And A Christmas Story twice. Last night we watched Scrooged with Bill Murray. And we also watched Elf about 5 times this December. We also watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation movie twice too. We also have all these on DVD too, but sometimes it's nice to watch on TV too. : )

Christmas 2016! Everyone happy and genuinely smiling and in good cheer. We had a delicious dinner. Granted it's a lot simpler than Thanksgiving. But the food was most excellent! Very traditional. And as you know.... we don't dress up all fancy shmancy at our house. Nope, we don't put on airs at our house. For us, Christmas dinner is about good food and being together as a family. We dress for comfort, all of us were in sweatpants and we were so happy and comfortable. Concentrating on the happy mood we all were in and just enjoying the evening. And the amazing food we were about to nosh on! : )

We had salad, black olives, hot fresh buttered cornbread, 2 pans of cheesy gratin potatoes from scratch. a honey pineapple ham, this ham is so good. We had some Ginger Ale in glasses we use just once a year. Hahaha. : ) But it makes it even more special. And we honestly just relaxed and ate and talked all through dinner. And see Bran holding his phone? He took pics of our Christmas meal too and he updated his timeline on LINE because he was pretty happy about to tuck into this meal. : ) He said on his timeline to his friends..."Merry Christmas everyone, here is our traditional American Christmas meal we are about to eat right now." And he got so many likes and comments from his classmates. They really liked the pics he showed them, just of the food. : )

Bran put his phone away, he was so happy he was about to dig right in. So was Noah. Meanwhile, Noboru went to get something from the kitchen for a sec.

I snapped this pic and then put my camera away for about a solid hour. We really enjoyed our dinner together.

Handmade Icecream cake all the way from Nagano Japan! Nobody does icecream cakes the way she does! She's the best!

If you're going to have a Christmas cake in Japan, you might as well have the best and get a Christmas cake from her. Her cakes are out of this world. : )

And the cake on the bottom is so soft and good. We love her cakes...her birthday ice cream cakes and also her Christmas ice-cream cakes. : ) Anyway...that was our Christmas 2016 in a nuthsell. I hope you all had a lovely Christmas too. : )

Surfer Boy

My Prepster

Studious and Smart

An Excellent Swimmer

About the Blog

This blog was started for everybody I care about and love back home, it sorta helps my family and friends feel more connected to me and my life. It's also a place to make new friendships, support one another, laugh our butts off at times, and just be kind to one another and hang out! So please join me, while I try living my life in Japan, all the good, the bad and yes even the embarrassing blunders that I will probably be making along the way! : )